Civil Engineering Professor Panos D. Prevedouros, PhD discusses his opinions on infrastructure issues with emphasis on the City and County of Honolulu.

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Can We Solve Honolulu’s Pervasive Traffic Congestion Problem?

Yes we can!

There are several specific projects that mitigate congestion that if one could magically install half of them overnight, Honolulu’s congestion level would be so low that traffic congestion would be removed from people’s list of worries. That would be a great thing for quality of life on Oahu and a booster to our tourism and the overall local economy.

Part 1 gives some background on congestion (did you know that some congestion is a good thing?) and presents low cost and shorter term traffic congestion solutions. Part 2 presents longer term, high cost traffic congestion solutions.

3 comments:

Anonymous
said...

I hear you and I think their going ahead with out all the funds is awful.They want to take the bus and Hani van monies to show the feds they have the money. They can't pay it back and how can ofilme synthse they take from a working system to give to one that will be bankrupt like all the others. Just check and see. Most rails fail because they can't make it on the fares. We do not need to be having our chidren end up payng for something that does't work.

Honolulu has an Intelligent Transportation System which does not appear to have all the elements of ITS to manage or relieve traffic congestion on the H1 or improve traffic flow in Downtown. Two elements of ITS are missing such as Ramp Meters and Variable Speed Limit Signs. A third element as road sensors may not be there also. And AI software designed under specifications of a traffic engineer to mimic what a traffic engineer would do when confronted with data transmitted by the road sensors.

The Traffic Management Center would help coordinate and take advantage of installed ITS. It started when Mufi was mayor. They are still finishing the building... No traffic relief in sight till late 2013.

Meanwhile, the rail, which has incomplete Final Design and no federal funding, has started construction!

Brief Information about Panos

Panos D. Prevedouros, Ph.D. is a professor of traffic and transportation engineering at the Department of Civil Engineering, Univ. of Hawaii-Manoa since 1990.
Panos graduated from the Aristotle Univ. of Greece in 1984, and with Masters and PhD degrees in 1990 from Northwestern Univ. (Evanston, IL), a leading academic institution in engineering and transportation.
He chairs the Freeway Simulation Subcommittee of the Transportation Research Board. He was president of the Hawaii Highway Users Alliance from 2006 to 2008.
Panos co-authored a Transportation Engineering textbook and over 100 reports and technical papers. He received the 2005 Van Wagoner Award of the Institute of Transportation Engineers.
He co-organized the 1st International Symposium on Freeway Operations (ISFO) in Athens, Greece, and the 2nd ISFO in Honolulu in June 2009.
Dr. Prevedouros served in the Transit Advisory Task Force in 2006 and in the Technology Selection Expert Panel in 2008 of the City Council of Honolulu.
He run for mayor of Honolulu in the 2008 elections and finished 3rd in the primary elections with 18% of the vote from a field of nine candidates.